Learn how to build backgrounds like a professional broadcast designer

In this series of tutorials your host John Dickinson demonstrates how create to a range of professional, broadcast-style backgrounds in Adobe After Effects. In addition to the base backgrounds, you will learn how to create numerous stunning variations. By series end you will have a strong understanding of the workflow that John uses every day working in broadcast television and the skills necessary to build your own. Your creativity is the only limit!

Ever wonder how the pros get their work looking so sharp?

The popular and proven Making It Look Great video workshop series has been designed to answer that question. Throughout these in-depth After Effects video workshops, professional motion graphics designers from around the world demonstrate techniques essential to their daily work and give the design decisions and rationale that support them.

The featured projects are demonstrated step–by–step from start to finish, giving priceless insight into what it takes to design and produce professional broadcast motion graphics and visual effects.

We are working hard on Making It Look Great 5 so I thought I’ll let you in on a little status update. We are already halfway through. If everything goes well we should be releasing it in no more than 6 weeks. Unfortunately I became very sick and sometimes I have to give my plans up, go to the doctor and lay in bed for a few days. But I’m not giving up, oh no. Read more…

CS4 introduces us to 3 new effects: Cartoon, Bilateral Blur and Turbulent Noise. Bilateral Blur and Turbulent Noise are very similar to the existing Smart Blur and Fractal Noise effects. In this tutorial, we’ll take a quick look at these new effects and see what makes them different. Watch tutorial